Archiving systems (such as email-archiving systems) typically copy data elements (such as emails) from a source system to an archived system in order to conserve storage resources on the source system. In order to eliminate the potential for data loss, archiving systems typically delay removing a data element from the source system until an archived instance of this data element has been backed up by a backup system.
Because backup systems typically consume and/or interrupt a large amount of computing resources when backing up an archiving system, a backup system may only back up an archiving system on a periodic (e.g., weekly or monthly) basis. Thus, since conventional archiving systems may not remove data elements from a source system until an archived instance of these data elements has been backed up, even if a user of the source system archives a number of data elements, the user may be unable to reclaim the storage space occupied by these data elements until the backup system completes its typical backup cycle. In some cases, the delay between when a user has archived a data element and when the physical copy of this data element is removed from the user's system may exceed a number of days or weeks. Unfortunately, because some email quotas and policies prevent users from sending or receiving emails until the users' inbox has been reduced to a specific size, such delays may prevent a user from sending or receiving emails for days or weeks at a time, even if the user has designated a large portion of his/her emails for archiving.